Swine Production

My main goal in life is to become a successful veterinarian. While I am waiting out the semester to receive either an acceptance or rejection letter from the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (please be an acceptance letter!), I have been focusing on classes (as I should be). All of the classes that I have taken thus far in my major of animal science have been purely lecture classes, where listening to a professor or instructor is the only method of learning. This semester has been a little different.

I signed up to take ANSC 4081, better known as Swine Production. There have been several days of lecture in this class, but there has been an equal amount of hands on work. Within the first month and a half of this semester, I have learned how to move hogs and get them to the proper destination, and I have learned the ins and outs of the birthing process. Last Saturday, I spent 5 hours delivering piglets from two different sows. I had to get down and dirty in order to clean off the piglets and tie off their umbilical cords. Despite being coated up to my elbows in placenta, it felt really great to be in the barn doing the very things we were currently learning about. Once a litter is born, it has to be processed. This includes counting the teats, weighting, ear notching (for identification), giving vital injections, cutting off the cord, and sometimes removing needle teeth (to prevent injuries to other piglets and/or the mother). As part of my class, I was given the opportunity to perform all the listed tasks of processing a litter, which increased my span of experience in the animal field.

Before coming to LSU, I had never been around large animals (swine, cattle, goats, sheep, and horses), so it was never in my mind set to practice medicine in that field. My goal has always been to become a small animal and exotics veterinarian, and I have spent countless hours working in a small animal clinic for cats and dogs to gain as much experience as possible. Working at the swine unit along with the experience I have gained with horses through my job at the Reproductive Biology Center has opened my mind a little to the different options I have. I still cannot see myself becoming a full time large animal veterinarian because I just love cats and dogs too much, but I feel like I could make room in my practice to visit clients with pet pigs and possibly even pet horses. We will just have to wait and see where I end up.

Peace

Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras has been over for nearly 24 hours, and as I look back over the past few days, I am disappointed in my lack of participation. Over the past couple of years I would make my way into New Orleans the Friday prior to "Fat Tuesday" and attend as many parades as possible during the next 4 days. Oh well. I suppose I was not up for the whole shebang this time around. However, I did manage to make it into the city this past Friday to try something new. This year was my first balcony experience! My roommate's cousin hooked us up with a few wristbands for the SOCO balcony on Bourbon St. It was a bit of a power trip getting to be the one to decide who is worthy of a 5 cent string of plastic. I felt bad for the guys with only one or two necklaces, so they received the majority of my bead stores. Other than that, it was a pretty straight forward Mardi Gras evening. We caught a parade, got daiquiris and hurricanes, and paid an obscene amount of money for a French Quarter "Lucky Dog".

I think the most eventful part of Friday was reading the signs held up by whatever Christian group it was manning every corner of Bourbon. One sign, in particular, listed the groups of people who were doomed for Hell. I fit in with several of the listed categories: liberal, democrat, feminist, agnostic, etc. Some other items off the list, and I am not making any of the previous or following items up, included: loud mouth women, (I thought this particular one was hilarious), gamblers, lawyers, and various religious groups such as Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. As offensive as the sign may be, I cannot help but laugh because it is just so ridiculous. Moving on.

As lame as this may sound, I reminisce every year about a simple little poem I wrote about Mardi Gras during my senior year of High School. I took a creative writing course that year, and the teacher gave us a poetry assignment. My original poem was about a forest (don't ask), and it was horrible. Therefore, I decided to start from scratch and rewrite a new poem during my lunch period, which happened to be on Fat Tuesday. For your personal enjoyment, I have decided to include my poem so cleverly titled "Mardi Gras". It may be weak, but it was good enough to be published in my high school's literary magazine that year.

Mardi Gras
by Amanda Morrison

Among the herds of people
Filling up old Bourbon Street,
Are crazy drunken dancers
Wearing out their dirty bare feet.

The sky is clear,
And the night is young
As the Zydeco music plays away,
And the purple, green, and gold covered crowd
Can be heard far and wide
Yelling, "Laissez les bon temps roulez!"

The rest of my Mardi Gras break was good (that's right, we Louisiana folk get 3 days off school to go party!), but it was spent doing non-Mardi Gras activities. For any of you looking for new music to get into, I would highly recommend Band of Horses. I went to a live show of theirs on Monday, and they were fantastic! They sound even better live than they do on their CD.

News Flash! If you are not already aware, Across the Universe has been released on DVD. Half the people who have seen it loved it, and the other half were not as fond of the film. My personal opinion is that the movie is amazing. My favorite Beatles songs were featured, and I love the way the movie was made. The "Hey Jude" scene was my favorite portion of the whole flick. Don't take my word for it, though. Watch it for yourself, and form your own opinion. Well, that is all for now.

Peace